Limitless Worlds

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Stars Without Number has a good choice of harder cybernetics, and since Other Dust and that game are compatible, I thought I'd figure out a more flavorful way to implement this hyperadvanced tech into the scummy world of OD.

Cybernetics

Every once in a while, the party may stumble upon an ancient cache with cyberware available. While very powerful, few people in the wastes have the technology to apply it.

To install cyberware, you must go to someone who at least claims they are a doctor. They first must make a successful Tech/Medical check with a difficulty of 8 plus the system strain. Various modifiers can apply, such as a sterile work environment giving a +1 bonus, while dirty scalpels and whiskey anesthetic could give a -1 penalty. If they pass the skill check, you gain the use of the cyberware at its normal system strain. If the roll fails, you get the cyberware but the system strain increases by 1.

Rejection

Cyberware is meant to be applied to only healthy humanoids, not creatures with aberrant genes and mutations. After you get a piece of cyberware, you must make a physical effect save after a week to see if your body does not reject it. For every mutation you have (benefit and defect, stigmatas don't count), you have a +1 penalty to the roll, as well as an additional penalty equal to the system strain of the cyberware. If you succeed, your body accepted the implant and you can go about your day. If you failed, your body has rejected the implant, meaning you can no longer use it and the cyberware basically becomes unusuable to anyone else. The upside to this is that you lose the system strain the cyberware gave you. The bad part is that you may quickly end up with one less arm or a diseased hole in your abdomen, which means another visit to that chopshop.

Generally this means regular humans will have an easier time of accepting cyberware, which is kind of the point

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Mutant Future is a great kind-of retroclone that emulates the great, wacky science fantasy game that is Gamma World. However, there are a few weird bits about it I don't like, which is related to its roots in the Labyrinth Lord game. Mainly, I don't like how besides race, stats, gear and mutations, all characters are kind of the same. I know, "but that diversifies them a lot," but it leaves all characters with relatively the same skill set. So I thought an easy way to remedy this would be through professions. It's simple, but it works. I also have a few other ideas for MF, including "scrap" weapons and armor as well as Cryptic Alliances.

Professions

After the stats of a character have been determined, you choose your character's profession. This represents past experiences and abilities that could come handy as you explore Gamma Terra. Professions grant you a -1 bonus on attribute rolls related to your professional skills. Every character begins with two professions, or alternatively, one "improved" profession that gives you a -2 bonus and represents a long history in a job.

A few changes this would implement include getting rid of the strength bonus to bust down doors, as well as mechanics for finding hidden doors and traps. The methods presented are too random and not to my liking.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Before I continue on my Eclipse Phase hack, I actually have to sit down and read the whole game (at least just the core book). I basically needs to know how things work before I tinker with them. Regardless, you could probably do fairly well by my current rules just by adapting/building morphs via Transhuman Tech.

Mostly what I need to know more about is Psychosurgery, Exsurgent Virus and the Mesh, to say the least. Maybe also look at sanity and so on; basically I need to find what systems I need to adapt over.

So I thought I would try and do a pretty simple conversion of Eclipse Phase over to the great Stars Without Number system, and I've got a good portion of it done.

Good portion, you say? But EP is huge! Yes, but I'm trying to convert the setting rather than the mechanics. So I'm not going to throw in new Psi mechanics when SWN has a perfectly fine Psychic class, and I'm not going to write a dissertation on post-singularity tech when most of it has a soft analogue in SWN. I will be addressing things such as Forking, Merging and so on, but those are important to the setting. To get the most out of these notes, you're going to need the Transhuman Tech supplement for SWN, as well as the hacking rules in Polychrome.

Character Creation

Character creation functions as normal, except when you get to choosing backgrounds and training packs. EP has these in the form of Backgrounds and Factions, but they can be taken by any class. However, there will be a "remainder" of skills for each class that a character can pick out from their class skill list. Psychics get two more choices, Warriors 4 more, and Experts 6 more.

Each faction also has a Rep associated with it. When using the Status rules from Transhuman Tech, the Rep corresponds which of the various social networks you start with a Status of 1 in. @-Rep is for autonomists, c-Rep is for hypercorps, e-Rep is for ecologists, f-Rep is for media, g-Rep is for criminals, i-Rep is for Firewall, and r-Rep is for scientists.

In addition, every character starts out with either Culture/Spacer, Culture/Traveller or Culture/World, depending on where they currently live.

Skill Changes

Some skills have changed, most notably Culture and Tech, which have new specializations.

Culture does not have the Alien specialty, but instead the Hypercorp specialty. Tech basically lacks all the current specializations except for Astronautic. The new specialiations include Morph (deals with healing and repair of "meat bodies"), Psyche (deals with Psychosurgery, Mesh and Psi), Alien (deals with alien technology like Gates), and Synth (deals with Synthmorphs and most other mechanical items/vehicles).

Sunday, March 16, 2014

BASH! Sci-fi is a cool little game, but when it was written the transhuman RPG genre was not as prevelant as it was today, so there are no rules for using it for such a game. Well, I wrote them! They are pretty basic, but they should get the job done.

Sleeves

In most transhuman games, the body is no longer important, but the mind is.
Conscienceness has been digitized and can move between vatgrown bodies
or constructed robots. Thus, your character has more flexibility than imagined.

The common term for a "body" now is called a Sleeve, which your mind wears like
a coat. Sleeves come in countless varieties, but they do follow four basic
"models." These are treated as races

Baseline - These are humans, or as close to humans, as possible. Aside from
enhanced lifespans, pathogen immunities and so on, they have the same capabilities
as a modern human. Baselines are usually the body you are born in, and are also
called "wombs." They have no specific advantages or disadvantages.

Biomorphs - These are vat grown, organic constructs. Some look very much like
humans, and while others are uplifted animals or alien creatures. Biomorphs
are the most common sleeves. If you inhabit a Biomorph, you can purchase
Alien powers.

Synthmorphs - These are robots, in so many words. Purely mechanical and electrical,
a person's mental synapses are stored in the plastic housing of these synthetic
entities that can have a wide array of forms. They have the Unliving advantage,
except that they can be affected by (and use) psionics, due to the mind
being more transitory. Synthmorphs can also take Mechanical powers.

Infomorph - This is a person's pure conscience, digitized. You are basically
a computer program that can jump between computers, monitor grids and so on.
Infomorphs have the Unliving advantage, including the immunity to psionics,
as well as the Avatar power.

Sleeve Ranks

Sleeves are ranked depending on their capabilities, and you can buy sleeves
you can later upload your mind into. Sleeves operate as character templates;
a normal character in BASH! Sci-fi has 7 points for their stats and 7 for powers.
Sleeve ranks increase these amounts. They are as follows

Characters are created as normal in an Alpha Sleeve of their choice,
though a GM may wish to start players with a better Sleeve than an
Alpha. There is something important you should consider about stats:

Your Mind stat is the only "static" stat. When you switch between bodies,
your Mind stat stays the same, but your Brawn and Agility can change. Subtract
your Mind rating from the Rank Points you get in a new Sleeve to determine
the amount of points you can divide between your Brawn and Agility stat. This
is also down with any Powers you transfer over

Resleeving

In transhuman games, you can switch between bodies by swapping your conscience
between them. A Sleeve is built normally like a character, but when your
mental state switches over to the new body, anything dependent on your old
body no longer applies. Some things carry over, and others don't. Here is
a list of what carries over when you resleeve into a new body

Alien Powers and Mechanical Powers do not switch over, as they are dependent
on your meat body.

Resleeving Process

Resleeving is both an art and a science. An improper sleeving can damage your
brain or make you feel body dismorphia. Whenever you switch between bodies,
which usually requires 1d6 hours, along with a trained technician and the
correct facilities, you have to make a Mind roll to avoid "alienation," as
it were. The difficulty depends on what body you are sleeving into.

If you succeed, the sleeving went off without a hitch. If you fail, you suffer
body dismorphia for 1d6 days, causing Brawn and Agility tests to increase
by a difficulty for the duration. If you roll snake eyes, your mind was
damaged in the process, causing you to permanently lose 1 Mind.

Forking

Some people undergo the illegal activity of forking, which is dividing your
mind between multiple sleeves so you can do more things at once. Forking
is often considered illegal, but it still happens.

Forking requires 1d6 hours, a trained technician and a proper facility, as
well as a Sleeve. When you Fork, you basically divide your "carried over"
advantages between your bodies, as well as your Mind stat. You can have
a number of forks equal to your Mind-1 active at any time, though that
would could result in at most four other forks with a Mind stat of 1. Each
fork requires a Resleeve roll, and snake eyes result in the Fork being
unsuccessful.

Merging

Eventually you'll probably want to recombine your disparate headspaces in your
Forks back into your base body. Once you get your Forks all back together,
it once again requires 1d6 hours, a trained technician and a proper facility.
You make a Mind roll with a difficulty related to how many forks you are
combining.

1 Fork - 302 Forks - 403 Forks - 504 Forks - 60

If you succeed, you obtain all the memories of the Forks as well as as
their advantages. If you fail, you reobtain all your advantages but
only remember experiences from half your forks. If you roll snake eyes,
you permanently "lose" one of those forks, which amounts to all its advantages
and skills you gave them. You also obtain memories from none of the forks.

Death

Death is not the end. If your body ever dies, a skilled person can spend
about 1d6 minutes extracting your sleeve's mental shunt, the device
that holds your consciencess. You can then transfer your mind to another
Sleeve through the normal methods.

There is a caveat to this; if you die as an Infomorph, you are dead forever.
A dead infomorph is a consciencess wiped from existence.

Reputation Economy

Money is no object any longer, so the interstellar economy is based not on
money, but your reputation and usefulness. Your Rep is rated from 1 to 10,
and represents basically your purchasing power. All characters start
out with 4 Rep, though the Rank power can increase this (1 Rank per point)

Rep abstractly represents money, with every rep point representing about
an additional zero in terms of dollars. 1 Rep means you have about 10
credits of buying power at any one time, 2 is about 100, all the way up to
10 billion at Rep 10.

Buying Stuff

You can buy any piece of equipment or sleeve of a Rep rank lower than yours
with no problem. If you want to buy something equal to your Red rating,
make a Mind roll of difficulty 10. If you succeed, you get the item fine.
if you fail, you overdraw and temporarily decrease your Rep by 1 for the
rest of the adventure.

You can also buy higher Rep items; buying an item one rank higher requires
a test of 20, two ranks a test of 30, and so on. You can only attempt
to buy equipment up to 5 ranks higher than yours, but this can prove difficult.
Also, if you fail your Rep rating is reduced by an equal amount for the session.
So failing at buying something 5 ranks higher than you results in your Rep
decreasing by 5 for the session. If the request is ever outlandish, like
trying to buy a capital ship with $10 dollars and a fat IOU, your Rep score
could potentially permanently decrease.

Increase and Decrease Rep

Increases and Decreases in your Rep should be handled via the story,
but Rep is usually dependent on where you are. Doing a big job for a
corporation could grant you a Rep boost to buy their items, but staving
off a planetary threat could grant you a Rep boost that applies throughout the
sector. Temporary Rep boosts are more common, and generally represent
the generic "loot" you can obtain from an adventure

Thursday, March 13, 2014

I forgot I wrote up these rules a while ago to use SWN for a time travel game. They seem pretty good, actually, though I'd probably decrease Fray recovery to possibly once a week instead of once a day, but I'm not sure. Also, I thought I'd give a little glossary, as the terms I present are pretty thematic.

Also, the system I present is more "hard time travel." For example, touching a past version of yourself would most likely cause the instant Unravelling of a Stitch, as well as probably yourself.

Pattern - The "correct" events of a universe's timeline. Also the term for the "rating" of a universe
Weave - The entire infinite multiverse
Ribbon - A pattern's linear timeline
Block - A group of universes based around a similar event e.g. Lincoln's assassination or 9/11
Spool - Your home point on a Pattern's Ribbon e.g. everybody's current Spool would be 21st century Earth
Needle - A time machine, usually in the form of a watch or other small device
Weaver - Someone who travels through time and space to fix paradoxes
Stitch - An individual alternate universe to an event. Multiple stitches make up a Block
Loom - The very progression of time and space, as well as the power behind it
Thread - A person's metaphysical "stability."
Unravel - The eventual destabilization of a Stitch due to paradoxes
Fray - A person's "personal Unravel"

Pattern RatingPatterns are the alternate universes of different time lines. Every event in history has a "Regular" pattern, which was the normal turn of events. The Regular Pattern could be seen as a constant ribbon of "real time." However, when that reality was made, an infinite amount of alternate universes to the event, called Stitches, inhabited the local metaphysical area, called a Block.

Each Stitch has a rating, known as a Pattern. This determines how different it is from the historical event of the Regular Pattern. The ratings, in escalating severity, are Light, Thin, Heavy and Dark.

A Light Pattern is almost identical to the Regular Pattern. Perhaps something small has changed, like leaves are normally blue instead of green, but the event of the Regular Pattern remains relatively the same. Light Patterns are often not to be bothered with.

A Thin Pattern is moderately different from the Regular Pattern. The event is markably different from the Regular Pattern, but usually on a small scale. For example, a famous artist may exist in the Regular Pattern, but he is a mass murderer in the Thin Pattern.

A Heavy Pattern marks a radical change from the Regular Pattern. The change is extremely blatant and often world changing. A Heavy Pattern could be one where the Aztec Empire never fell, Hitler was never born or advanced technology was discovered hundreds of years before it should.

A Dark Pattern is extremely dangerous and strange. This represents something totally alien from the Regular Pattern. Perhaps instead of humans, the main residents are sentient snails or some other odd thing.

StitchA Stitch is any of the infinite alternate realities spawned from any point in time. Once the Stitch is created, it is realtively stable; it will continue on in its own time stream forever, progressing history as normally as possible.

What is interesting about a Stitch is that once it is formed, it can never change: Stitches can not create Stitches. Though you can travel through time within a Stitch, Stitches can never spawn alternate histories. This applies to the Regular Pattern as well; the duel at the O.K. Corral should not be stopped.

What happens if something were to happen to a Stitch that would normally spawn another Stitch? The Stitch begins to Unravel.

Unraveling represents the Stitch coming apart at its seams at a metaphysical level. In layman's terms, this means that the Stitch begins to vanish, along with all the residents of it. The stitch unravels faster depending on how tampered it is: a simple civilian death that shouldn't have happened could only speed up the "natural" death of a Stitch by a day. However, something like introducing psionic powers to a group of stone age warriors could unravel a Stitch in a matter of days. Be sure, Unraveling is probably the greatest pain you could feel: not only physical, but mental and spiritual agony. A Weaver's main job is to travel the Weave and prevent Stitches from unraveling.

FrayAll travelers of the Weave risk much by navigating the fibers of time. As a Weaver moves farther and farther back from his own time, he becomes disassociated from his home universe, also known as his Spool. He loses what base reality he had grounded in his Spool. Weavers can never become lost, as a metaphysical "thread" can always guide them back to their Spool, but the farther they journey, the more worn and frayed the Thread becomes.

Anyone who navigates the Weave has a Fray score. Fray starts at 0, but its maximum cap is equal to the average of the character's Constitution and Wisdom scores. Fray can accumulate a few ways, with the first being travelling to a Stitch.

Whenever a Weaver travels to a Stitch, they must make a Tech save with a penalty to their roll. This penalty is equal to the amount of centuries that the Weaver travels, rounded up at 50. For example, if a group of Weavers traveled 267 years in the past, they would make a Tech save with a -3 penalty. If they only traveled 217 years, they would have a -2 penalty.

Further, a modifier is added for every Pattern Rating they Weaver navigates: 0 for Regular, -1 for a Light, -2 for Thin, -3 for Heavy and -4 for Dark.

To summarize, if a Weaver wants to travel back in time 120 years to a Thin Pattern, he has a -3 penalty to his Tech roll.

If the Weaver does not succeed on his Save, though he arrives at his destination, he gains a point of Fray. As Fray accumulates, a Weaver will become more and more paranoid about his time, possibly believing that his Spool does not exist or he does not exist.

If a character ever gains enough Fray to reach his Fray score, they Weaver's Thread "snaps." This means that the Weaver can never return to his Spool. In fact, he can not inhabit any Stitch at all; he is thrown out into the Weave, forever cursed to bounce along the interdimensional fabric, never dying and never living. It is a terrible experience.

All is not lost, however. Fray decreases with time; for every day of rest, a Weaver reduces his Fray by one. This represents him gathering his thoughts and rationalizing his journey through time and space.

LoomIn addition to granting the owner the ability to travel through time, a Needle also gives the Weaver access to the Loom.

Loom is what writes the Stitches, what carves and creates them. However, that level of power is far too great to be manifested into the Needle, no matter how powerful the device is. The Loom, however, grants a suite of abilities that a Weaver can use to alter his personal timeline, or even the timeline of others. These powers are Shedding, Picking, Battening and Unraveling. Though these powers automatically work, you must roll a Tech save or gain Fray. In fact, Battening and Unraveling are so powerful, they will inflict Fray just from use.

Shedding: Shedding is used to slow down an opponents timeline, wearing away at their very being. Any opponent in sight can be Shedded. When they are, the gain a few penalties for a round: they have -1 to all their attack and damage rolls, they add +1 to their AC, and they can only move at half their normal speed. Further, the opponent can only do a move action or a normal action this round, not both.

A Weaver can choose to increase the power of his Shedding if he takes a penalty to his Tech roll to avoid Fray. He can increase the duration of the ability for one round for every -1 applied, and he can also affect another opponent for every further -1 applied. That means a Weaver attempting to Shed three enemies for 2 rounds has a -3 modifier to his Tech save to avoid Fray.

Picking: Picking draws out the loose fibers of the Weaver's Thread or perhaps an ally, increasing the speed of their own timelines. Any ally in sight, including the Weaver, can be Picked. When they are, they gain a few bonuses for a round: they have +1 to all their attack and damage rolls, they add -1 to their AC, and they can make an additional movement or action for the round. Further, they double their movement rate.

A Weaver can choose to increase the power of his Picking if he takes a penalty to his Tech roll to avoid Fray. He can increase the duration of the ability for one round for every -1 applied, and he can also affect another ally for every further -1 applied. That means a Weaver attempting to Pick four allies for 3 rounds has a -5 modifier to his Tech save to avoid Fray.

Picking also has an alternate use: at any time, the Weaver can take any amount of Fray on an ally and apply it to himself. For example, Sarah and John both have Fray. Sarah currently has 5/13 Fray, and John has 9/11. John is dangerously close to snapping his Thread. Thus, Sarah decides to absorb some of John's Fray, in this case, two. Sarah "picks" John, causing her Fray to increase to 7/13 and causing John's Fray to decrease to 7/11.

Battening: The Weaver beats at the very fabric of time, organizing it to his liking. The Weaver freezes time for everyone except himself for 1d4 rounds. He can not be harmed from natural hazards such as fire, poison or ice, and he can easily walk across most liquids. When time returns to normal, all things that the Weaver did occur at once: that means that a Weaver could attack an enemy four times while Battened, and when time resumes, hundreds of cuts or bullet wounds would appear on the enemy.

Because of Battening's power, Weavers who use it ALWAYS gain Fray. They gain 1d4+1 Fray, though they can make a Tech save to reduce the amount of Fray by half.

Unraveling: Unraveling is the worst offense a Weaver can inflict on someone. He tears apart their very being, leaving their opponent as nothing.

The Weaver can Unravel anyone within his sight. When he Unravels the enemy, the enemy instantly dies; no saves, no nothing. An Unraveled enemy is not only killed, but erased from all existence and history; they can't be revived. Thus, Unraveling someone important could possibly cause an entire Thread to begin to unravel. Unraveling automatically gives the Weaver 5 Fray, along with an additional 1d4 Fray. The Weaver can not attempt a save to mitigate the Fray.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Alright, the big Darkseid/Thanos of the setting. I'm actually not going to be using ICONS anymore, because I actually prefer the pretty great MASKS game by Black the Blackball, which combines ICONS with FASERIP. That's a lot of capital letters!

And judging by these numbers, Omega is someone you do NOT want to mess with

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

With Great Power for Icons, power customization has reached an all time high for the game, easily getting on the same level as M&M. So I thought it might be interesting to adapt some characters from their Freedom City setting. Seems appropriate, as both games sprung from the mind of the awesome Steve Kenson. But here is the first one, Black Star!

Note: Black Star is PL 11, and I used point buy in ICONS to build him. I figured about 5 points equals a power level, so Black Star is built with 50 points as opposed to 45Black Star